I hear them jump the banister outside my window and rattle the back door open.
Sounds of tripping and fumbling over the living room items follows.
As I lay there imagining what it all looks like on the other side of the wall I realize I’m holding my breath. I let out a quiet, slow sigh. My eyes are pinned open, all senses on high alert. I’m sure I can hear the dirty carpet crunching under their filthy shoes. Step, step, step, fumble, thump, step,step… closer and closer.
I hear what I conclude to be one of them plop down onto the couch. The other two are snickering closer and closer to my closed bedroom door.
The door opens with a flood of light filling the room.
I roll over to face the wall.
Without even bothering to close the door behind them, they tumble into the bed across from me. The smell of alcohol and drugs… and sex pervades my nostrils. The grunts are unabashed, heavy, and unsteady.
Hiding under the covers I suddenly realize a shadow above me. I flip the covers back to meet a face within inches of mine. The couch plopper.
I shoot out of bed in a panic and race for the bathroom. I slam the door and hold it closed while my heart pounds at my ear drums.
I hear him pass by the door, back to the couch.
Cold and exhausted from my heightened senses and linoleum floor, I finally hear sleep throughout the house.
Cracking the door open, I convince myself to take a peek.
I mouse my way back to my bedroom, close and lock the door, and try to get back to sleep.
What seems like seconds later, my alarm wakes me. I grab my things, too scared to shower, I dress in the bathroom.
As I walk past the being on my couch I realize he’s rigged. Belt around his upper arm still, needle hanging lamely. I creep to him to see if he’s still alive. As I place my finger under his nose he snorts loudly. I leap back knocking everything off of the coffee table.
Upside down carpet pizza.
15 minutes later I sit down at a desk and my Color Theory Final smacks me in the face with the crack of dawn.
I grew up in the same home my entire childhood. In a small town, where I graduated with nearly every kid I went to kindergarten with.
When I was almost 19, I moved out to attend Art School. That day my mom dropped me off with a girl four or five years older than me who’d lived in that particular dorm room (one bedroom apartment) for a couple years on her own.
The carpets were blue… I think. She clearly didn’t own a vacuum. The smell was something I would describe as stale bong water with a Lush bath bomb floating in it. The sink was full of molding dishes. The outside of the bathtub was dripping Lush bath bars and the drain was clogged with what appeared to be a small rodent… luckily it was just hair.
“Our” room was very much still her room. Her things took up the vast majority of the space. She and her boyfriend, who owned his own house by the way, would stay at our apartment most nights of the week. They would trample in at all hours of the day and night. High, drunk, and shepherding sketchy characters along with them.
I witnessed sex, drugs, and near death experiences multiple times during my stay there.
Yet, I felt some sort of weird obligation to protect her, help her, befriend her and attempt to dig through all of her wreckage and rescue the beautiful soul I saw her to be.
I very obviously had no boundaries and, that, is the most horrifying part of it all to me.
Reflecting on this time of my life ensued the woman I am today to come face to face with the young girl who was so blindly searching for herself. And, boundaries abound, I can finally say, I am proud of who she sees.